Pumpkin-Chicken Chili

Ok, I'll be honest.  This probably shouldn't be called a chili...because there are no chilis in it.  But that's just because I don't eat spicy things.  If you try out this recipe, all ya gotta do is throw some chilis in the pot and then it can qualify as a chili.  Or maybe that's not how it works...I have no idea.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast 

1 giant scoop of pumpkin (probably 3/4+ c)

1 can stewed tomatoes

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can sweet corn

1/2 c veggie stock

1/2 c beef stock

3 cloves garlic

1 inch ginger root

small chunk of onion

4 radishes

Directions

Chop the onion and mince the garlic & ginger.  Brown them in a skillet.  Trim skin and excess fat off of the chicken, then place it in the bottom of the crockpot.  Don't worry about the bones for now.  Dump the onion/ginger/garlic on top of the chicken.  In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin, tomatoes, corn, and stocks, and stir well.  (I used beef stock because that's what I had...I'm sure chicken stock would work just as well).  Add seasonings, stir again.  I used oregano, turmeric, garlic powder, and ginger powder.  Chop the radishes and add them to the bowl.  Mix it up.  Dump the contents of the bowl on top of the chicken.  

Put the lid on the crockpot.  Cook on low for 6.5-7 hours.  

Now for the fun part...removing the chicken bones.  The chicken should fall apart when you try to lift it out with a fork.  If you want to be more thorough than me, I suggest you use a very large spoon to get the chicken out.  Then shred it, remove all bones, and return the chicken to the crockpot.  I ended up shredding the chicken without taking it out of the crockpot, and then I had to go fishing for the bones.  I think I got them all...but I'm not positive....

I was going to make some cornbread to go with this chili, but I was too hungry after my run today to wait for it to cook, so I just ate a bowl of chili by itself.  (Ok, not entirely by itself, I had a bowl of pasta next to it).  I will hopefully make some cornbread tomorrow to go with it.  

Chili Cook-off 2013

2 years ago, my friend Josh and I entered a Gumbo competition.  Neither of us had ever made a gumbo before, but we threw one together and won the competition.  This year, we entered again, made our gumbo even better, and won again.  A month or two ago, we found out that there would be a chili cook-off.  Neither of us had ever made a chili before.  So, of course we entered.

Our Gumbo is known as Heart-Attack Gumbo.  It's got lots of bacon in it.  We wanted to go for the same theme with our chili, so we named it "Artery Clogging Chili."  It involved an entire package of bacon.  Also, a big hunk of beef, 3 or 4 cans of tomatos, some Guinness, some Jameson, some dark chocolate, some onions & mushrooms, some garlic, and various seasonings.  And we chopped up a little orange pepper thing...I don't remember what kind of pepper it was.  I can't stand spicy things so I didn't pay attention to that part.

Big pan of bacon cooking.  My apt. smelled pretty awesome!

We cut up the meat into cubes and rubbed it and a bunch of beef bones in some seasonings.

The meat got to take a nice bath in Guinness and Jameson.  It was like a spa...for meat.

I set the crockpot on low and let it cook all night long.  It got turned off about 12 hours later, before I left for work the next day.  I added 2 squares of dark chocolate at that point.  The chili took all day to cool off, and I put it in the fridge when I got home from work that evening.  

This is what I found when I took the chili out of the fridge this morning.  Grease much?

How bout a big pile of skimmed-off grease?

There were 17 chilis to taste.

Ours was by far the best.  And one of about 3 that didn't put me in severe pain...

Some happy tasters.

 Unfortunately, we only came in 2nd place.  We couldn't remember particularly liking the chili that came in 1st, but oh well.  Everyone has different tastes.  Maybe ours wasn't spicy enough for most people.  It was spicy enough for me to taste it...any spicier and I wouldn't have been able to eat my own chili!  

We'll be back next year, with an even better chili and hopefully win.  

We want to be gumbo champions AND chili champions!